One Two Skip a Few
by Missie2
Summary: Five Peridots squabble over their shared pearl. Silliness ensues.


**One, Two, Skip a Few**

This is a drunk drabble, not enough people drank the mulled wine again and I don't let that stuff go to waste. I'm sorta sorry but not really.

…..

The way Peridot 24-X reacted, it was like Peridot 17-X had shot at her with a bolt pistol. She jumped, screeched and slapped her around the back of her head. It was quite petty, really.

But then, Peridot 17-X had been just as petty. It was only a headband, after all. Silver filament with brass cogs. It looked quite pretty in the pearl's pale green hair. And even if she didn't like it, it didn't warrant being snatched off of her head and thrown on the ground. The pearl stared at it without making any move to pick it up as the two Peridots raised their voices in argument.

"That hurt, you pebble!" Peridot 17-X yelled.

"Keep your grabby hands to yourself, grab-hands!" Peridot 24-X retorted, squaring up to her.

"I don't have to, it's my cycle! I can touch her all I want!"

To demonstrate, Peridot 17-X put her stumpy little hand on pearl's shoulder and pointed at it, grinning. Peridot 24-X reached over, grabbed her hand and threw it off with such force they both fell over.

(pearl stayed where she was.)

The first slap was thrown, then a flurry of slapping ensued to a soundtrack of little grunts and squeaks. The pearl quietly picked up the headband and stored it in a nearby box for safekeeping. She watched the Peridots fight for quite some time until they were disturbed by the arrival of Peridot 22-X, scribbling on a holo-pad and muttering.

"All these numbers are off," she said to pearl, ignoring the battling gems. "We'll have to run them again. Come on."

She pulled pearl to her feet and tugged her towards the door, but was stopped midway. The other two Peridots had stopped fighting and were clutching pearl's other arm, pulling her back.

"What do you think you're doing?" Peridot 24-X growled.

"It's _my_ cycle with her!" Peridot 17-X crowed.

"No, it's not," Peridot 22-X told them, frowning. "It's cycle 132! That's my cycle!"

"It is not! You had her last cycle!"

"No, _she_ did!"

Peridots 17-X and 24-X both reached over to push 22-X out of the way, but bumped into each other. 24-X kicked out at 17-X, 17-X kicked back and they tripped over their own feet, knocking pearl off-balance (she recovered with enviable grace) and devolved into another battle. 22-X tried to tug pearl away again, but was pulled into the fight when they noticed.

Peridot 35-X stopped by not long into this fight and broke it up by prying them apart with a fission prod. When she started up a lecture on how they needed to act with dignity, they asked why she was there in the first place.

"I've got the pearl for this cycle," she replied, pointing at pearl (who was sitting by the wall again.)

"No, you don't!" Peridots 22-X and 24-X screamed in unison.

…..

They got out the schedule, and called in Peridot 31-X in the interests of fairness. Sure enough, there was a discrepancy in the calender and instead of the divisible-by-five orbit of 300 cycles, there was 302 because it was a skip orbit, a celestial anomaly that didn't normally register with anyone as a big deal.

But it was a big deal to the Peridots, because it meant there were two cycles that hadn't been factored into the pearl schedule. It was a _really_ big deal.

"It's not that big a deal," Peridot 22-X grumbled. "Just split them up by quadrants. We all get two quadrants each on the skip days."

"That's not enough time to do anything good," Peridot 17-X said, waggling her eyebrows in what was probably meant to be a sultry gesture.

The others made gagging noises.

"That leaves three quadrants unaccounted for," Peridot 31-X, counting on her fingers. "What'll we do with her then?"

"Well, what does she want to do?" Peridot 35-X pondered.

Five sets of eyes swivelled towards pearl. She stared blankly back. They swivelled back around.

"Okay, how about this," Peridot 17-X suggested wearily. "We give out the extra quadrants on work performance. Who's top rated at the moment?"

"56-X," Peridot 24-X replied.

"I meant out of _us_ , kabbitz," Peridot 17-X growled. Peridot 24-X glowered at the insult.

"Technically, it's 22-X," Peridot 35-X piped in. "But only because 31-X was on the rotary for three cycles."

"So it should be me then," Peridot 31-X cheered.

She jumped up and made straight for pearl before Peridot 22-X tackled her.

"Not so fast," she crowed. "You heard her, _I'm_ top rated!"

Peridot 31-X flipped over and kicked her away. Unfortunately she kicked her straight into Peridot 17-X, who responded by lurching over and catching her in a headlock. The fight that ensued gradually involved all five of them trying to wrestle each other into submission and dragging back anyone that tried to sneak away, because every time one of them tried to sneak away they tried to get pearl to sneak away with them.

If she could have, pearl would have told them that if they didn't waste so much time fighting they'd each have an extra three cycles each per orbit to spend with her.


End file.
